


The Hum

by abel_runners



Series: poison honey [3]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, POV Second Person, Season 3 Spoilers (srsly), This spoils the entirety of Season 3, Trauma, Your Local Five Cannot Stop Writing About A Certain Season 3 Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 10:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9651029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abel_runners/pseuds/abel_runners
Summary: Five is having a bad day, and can't help but notice the low buzz at the base of the skull. How it tugs back to what happened. All the runner wants to do is eat breakfast, but something keeps hissing like steam. Like smoke. Like ocean. Five is having a bad day.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Seventy-six days after London.

You notice the buzzing when you pull your socks on, the sunrise peeking through the makeshift curtains. You roll your shoulders, pushing it away. Your stomach is weighty, though, and your gums ache. You fluff your pillow. You put your shoes on. You shrug on your jacket. The buzzing at the back of your skull abates for a minute as you brush your teeth.

It’s been seventy-six days since London. Simon’s ghost and Sara’s, too, lurk in the shadows of your room, of the track, of the rec room. Moonchild’s ghost joins them; relentlessly appearing in dreams and in the corners of abandoned supermarkets. You don’t _see_ them, exactly, but they haunt; intertwined with flashes of memory and the scents of neon-plastic and sea salt, with the rusted ferries and the way Maxine called you _honey_ once and you flinched.

The buzzing feeling gets louder as you step outside, and start walking towards the mess hall. You breathe, stopping in front of the pharmacy. Tighten your fists. Loosen them. Tighten your shoulder blades. Loosen them. Tighten your jaw. Loosen it. Breathe into your belly. _Focus, Five. You’re here. Not there. She’s gone. You’re here, not there._ You keep walking. Your brain tries to tug back to the flotilla, but you yank it back. _Let me eat breakfast. We can freak out later. Let me eat._ It relents.

You walk into the mess. You grab a tray, a plate, a fork and spoon. Your hands are shaking. You breathe into your belly. You loosen your grasp on the ceramic. Scott, the cook, hands you blueberry oatmeal and a glass of orange juice. “Have a good day, Five!” He grins at you, and you nod back, murmuring a low ‘thanks’ out of the tightness in your throat.

You turn, moving deliberately towards an empty table. You stare at the oatmeal sloshing around the bowl, blueberries slipping in and out of the milky-whiteness. The buzzing is getting louder. It’s _begging_ you for its attention. You clench your teeth, about to sit down, when—

“Morning, Five! Here, we can make space for you.” Sam. Calling you over. Well, you can’t say no, because that would be weird. You always sit with him for breakfast. But—the buzzing, the hum—

Your feet turn. You walk towards his table, with Maxine, Paula, and Jody also greeting you. “Thanks,” you say, attempting a small, bright smile. It feels like you’re peeling back your skin. You force yourself to breathe. You force yourself to take a big bite of your oatmeal.

“You have a run today, right, Five?” Asks Jody, and you chew slowly. Not really meeting her gaze. You swallow.

“Yeah. Just a med supply one out near the sawmill; nothing too hard. You?” Good. Good. You’re speaking. You’re passing as not—not kind of losing it—

“Nah, nothing today. I was just wondering if you could maybe look for some earplugs while you’re out? Mine fell apart last night,” she asks. And you nod.

“’Course.” You take another large scoop of oatmeal and shove it into your mouth. The hum is getting overwhelming. It sounds like wasp, like tide, like notes through a headset and then the axe, oh, the axe. It always starts with that godforsaken axe. And then the heat, or maybe it’s the honeysuckle sweetness, or maybe it’s the screams or the purple wound blooming across her forehead. Maybe it’s the shade of neon-orange in the distance. Maybe it’s that bruise of red against concrete.

Your stomach turns. Your hands start shaking. No. No. Not now. Not here. _Please._ Not in front of your friends. Not like this. Not like this.

“—and it shouldn’t be too pink or purple, but more of a lavender shade. What do you think, Five?”

You blink, snapping back to the present. What? What the hell is Sam talking about? “Uh, sorry?”

He glances at you, brow creasing. “The figurines for the game tonight? What colour should I go for?”

Oh, fuck. You missed half the conversation. Fuck. We’re talking about … Demons & Darkness? Maybe? The oatmeal is sticky on your tongue. Blueberry skin is stuck in the back of your teeth. He’s still waiting for an answer. “Um, I – I dunno. Whatever your gut says?”

That makes him chuckle. You bite the inside of your cheek as you compel yourself to smile. “My gut is dumb and doesn’t know colour palettes, to be honest.”

Maxine jumps in. “I think a lavender shade would be cool. It’d suit the theme of redemption you’re …”

She fades back out. You stare at your oatmeal. A blueberry drowns inside the brown-sugared surface. Your neck is tight. _No. Please. Stay out. I don’t want you here. Not now._ But you can’t stop her. You never could. You never could. Your skin goes cold. Your throat tightens to an uncomfortable choke, and you feel your head go hazy. Breathe, Five, deep. Come _on._ Bring yourself back. You’re here, at Abel, and you’re safe. London is over, Moonchild is over, it’s over. You are not hurting anyone anymore. You are moving on.

But –

_The buzzing of honeybees. The poison, the way your hands shot his thigh and the way Jody crumpled to the ground, and the buzzing, and the reverberating heat, and the singsong hum, and the prickle of a needle, and the way he shrieked, and how your boot was on his shoulder and he couldn’t stop you, and the dead, and the dead, and the dead. And the living, still, you are still living. But she’s not gone, she’s in your dreams like a sickening blur, like some sort of witch-siren, like a deathless deity, and you cannot –_

Hand on shoulder – “Five?” – Flinch. Movement. “I need some air.” Feet. Tray clatter on table. Door. Someone calling your name, but you are not Five, you are the killer, you are the weak, you are the haunted. Now, grass. No, not grass. Bedsheets. No, not bedsheets. Couch pillows. Nausea. Smells of acrid smoke. No, not smoke, just dust. Hand over eyes. Breathe deep, like they taught you. Can’t breathe. Seawater in mouth. Seawater on skin. Blood on skin. No. Just sweat. It was blood, though. There will always be blood. Flower-blooming panic spreads through all of it, and you relax your jaw. Tighten your jaw. Relax it. No, tighten. Grind molar against molar.

Explosion, seawater, joy. Gates, violent advance, axe, some sort of tear-stained plead for mercy, and freedom. But not. There were woods, there were old ghosts, there were writhing snakes. And a traitor, but not. But still. But he’s dead, now. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. She spoke, you acted, you hurt.

Now, couch pillows. Digging into your spine. You breathe. You breathe. You breathe. You shouldn’t be – you should’ve – this shouldn’t be happening. This should not have happened. You should have stopped it. You were not strong enough. They’ve forgiven you. They shouldn’t. Your shoulders broke with the weight, and now you are here. And the guilt is a mountain on top of your chest, it’s the buzzing in your skull, it’s the dizziness deep in your gut.

Maybe you fall asleep. Maybe you just lay there, on the comms shack couch, staring at the ceiling boards. Maybe you don’t do anything at all.

But something shifts, eventually. It passes. It passes, like it always does. But now, you feel hollowed out, like a watermelon husk. You feel scooped out and consumed. You feel emptied.

And now Sam’s here. A blanket is on your body. Covering your muddied shoes. He’s on his laptop, but something is wrong with the light. It’s too bright. You shift, sitting up with care, stretching your neck. It pops.

You speak, then, a little roughly. “Hey, Sam? What, uh, what time is it?”

He doesn’t move. You stand up with a sigh, knees complaining. He’s probably busy listening to his collection of godawful 80s pop. “Sam?”

You touch his shoulder. He doesn’t turn.

You squeeze it, pressing down.

He slumps forward, forehead colliding with the keyboard. A mug of tea spills.

Your stomach drops.

“Sam, seriously, wake up,” you say, a lot louder now. You look at his face. And then the light flickers, and you notice it.

The sticky-cherry, sticky-thick liquid pooling around your shoes. The scent of rust and coin-metal. “Sam!” And your heart is in your head. Your fingers press for a pulse, but there is only stillness. There is only the deep grove in his shoulder, the killing blow, the severed artery. An axe glints next to his chair. It is red. It is bloodied. It is _yours_.

A scream climbs out of your throat. “Someone! Help! Sam—Sam is—he needs a medic! _Help!_ ” You bunch up your sweatshirt, pressing it to the wound, but there is nothing to absorb. There is no dripping blood. It’s all at your feet. It’s all over your fingers, slippery and wet.

The world lurches to the side, and you can smell smoke, and you can smell burnt hair, and you can smell the ocean.

***

Your eyes dart open, and you're sitting up in your bed. Sheets tangled around your ankles. Chest so tight you feel it burn, hands shaking, eyes wet and pink. You breathe, in and out, in and out, in and out. “It was a dream. It was a dream. _Jesus,_ ” you whisper to the barely-risen sun, and you roll your aching shoulders. And you pull on your socks. And you shrug on your jacket. And you brush your teeth. And you step outside, walking towards the mess hall. You stop in front of the pharmacy, and loosen your fists, your shoulder-blades, your jaw. You keep walking. You go inside the mess hall. You grab a tray, a plate, a fork and spoon. Scott, the cook, serves you oatmeal with dried cranberries, and gives you a glass of water. You speak, first, this time. “Have a good day, Scott,” and he smiles right back.

You sit down with Sam, Jody, Maxine, and Paula. You eat big bites of your raspberry oatmeal with shaky hands, yes, with a tight jaw, yes, but you own it this time. You are real this time. You manage a chuckle at Sam’s jokes, glancing at him with waves of relief washing over you. _Alive. He's still alive. That's good._ You remind Jody about her med supply run today. And there is no buzzing. There is no buzzing.

You are okay. Sam is okay. We are okay. Maybe not good, exactly, but okay. And that is enough.

 


End file.
